Chink. That word will forever be emblazoned in my mind. The pain a racial slur evokes can never be forgotten. The hate someone can have for me just because of the color of my skin is scary. How can they hate me without even knowing me? Prejudice is especially frightening and real when it is shouted at you.
             I believe everything happens for a reason, but I've never been able to understand the purpose behind being called so many racial slurs. I finally understood after going to the New York State Fair with six Korean friends. As we walked the midway joking and chatting, we heard, "Look at all those yellow chinks!" We were annoyed, but moved on. We'd all heard similar things before and even though it hurt, we knew we couldn't do anything. We continued playing games and went on a ride or two, but we saw the stares of people who didn't understand. We even heard a sigh of disgust after I accidentally bumped into a man. I saw him wipe off the spot I had touched, as if being Asian was a contagious disease.
             As the afternoon wore on, we heard more shouts of "Yellow freaks!" and versions of various Asian "languages." It was like we were stuck in the middle of a racist movie that kept getting worse, and we couldn't get out. With each comment we became more hurt, and from that hurt came anger. We started to shout back.
             "Ignorant jerk" and "Ching chong, bite my a**!" were just a couple of the comments we threw back into the sea of people. The retaliation only provided temporary relief from the pain as the next name always brought back the all-too-familiar stinging feeling in an already open wound.
             By the end of the day we were emotionally exhausted. We were amazed to discover that we had spent a good portion of our day reacting to these insults. I couldn't believe we had wasted so much time on people we didn't even know.
             This day helped me understand the purpose of our pride and heritage as it was cut to shreds by complete strangers. I
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